Another Day in America - Laurie Anderson

And so finally here we are, at the beginning of a whole new era.

The start of a brand new world

And now what?

How do we start?

How do we begin again?

There are some things you can simply look up, such as:

The size of Greenland, the dates of the famous 19th century rubber wars,

Persian adjectives, the composition of snow

And other things you just have to guess at

And then again today’s the day and those were the days and now these are the

days and now the clock points histrionically to noon.

Some new kind of north

And so which way do we go?

What are days for?

To wake us up, to put between the endless nights

And by the way, here’s my theory of punctuation:

Instead of a period at the end of each sentence, there should be a tiny clock

that shows you how long it took you to write that sentence

And another way to look at time is this:

There was an old married couple and they had always hated each other,

never been able to stand the sight of each other, really.

And when they were

in their nineties, they finally got divorced.

And people said «Why did you wait

so long?

Why didn’t you do this a whole lot earlier?»

And they said «Well,

we wanted to wait until the children died.»

Ah, America.

And yes, that will be America;

a whole new place just waiting to

happen.

Broken-up parking lots, rotten dumps, speedballs, accidents and

hesitations, things left behind.

Styrofoam, computer chips…

And Jim and John, oh, they were there, And Carol, too.

Her hair pinned up in

that weird beehive way she loved so much, and Greg and Phil, moving at the pace

of summer

And Uncle Al, who screamed all night in the attic.

Yes, something happened to

him in the war, they said, over in France, and France had become something they

never mentioned, something dangerous

Yeah, some were sad to see those days disappear.

The flea markets and their

smells, the war

All the old belongings strewn out on the sidewalks, mildewed clothes and old

resentments and ragged record jackets

And ah, these days.

Oh, these days

What are days for?

To wake us up, to put between the endless nights

And meanwhile all over town, checks are bouncing and accounts are being

automatically closed, passwords are expiring, and everyone’s counting and

comparing and predicting:

Will it be the best of times, will it be the worst of times, or will it just be

another one of those times?

Show of hands, please

And ah, this world, which like Kierkegaard said, can only be understood when

lived backwards.

Which would entail an incredible amount of planning and

confusion

And then there are those big questions always in the back of your mind.

Things like:

Are those two people over there actually my real parents?

Should I get a second Prius?

And you, you who can be silent in four languages:

Your silence will be considered your consent

Oh but those were the days before the audience, and what the audience wanted,

and what the audience said it wanted

And you know the reason I really love the stars is that we cannot hurt them.

We can’t burn them or melt them or make them overflow.

We can’t flood them or

blow them up or burn them out

But we are reaching for them

We are reaching for them

Some say our empire is passing, as all empires do

And others haven’t a clue what time it is or where it goes or even where the

clock is

And oh, the majesty of dreams.

An unstoppable train.

Different colored

wonderlands, freedom of speech and sex with strangers

Dear old God: May I call you old?

And may I ask: Who are these people?

Ah, America.

We saw it.

We tipped it over, and then, we sold it.

These are the things I whisper softly to my dolls, those heartless little

thugs dressed in calico kilts and jaunty hats, and their perpetual white toothy

smiles

And oh, my brothers.

And oh, my sisters.

What are days for?

Days are where we live.

They flow and then they flow.

They come, they fade,

they go and they go.

No way to know exactly when they start or when their time

is up

Oh, another day, another dime

Another day in America

Another day, another dollar

Another day in America

And all my brothers.

And all my long lost sisters

How do we begin again?

How do we begin?